Chapter 197: Emotion Pt. 7

With Odin’s escape, the battle had ended, and all of the Hunters who had followed Odin surrendered.

“How insane is that… Just what…”

They had made the smart choice once they saw Lee Jun-Kyeong, who had shown a god-like power, return with Zeus. Without Odin, if they continued to fight at this point, it would have been a massacre rather than a battle.

The remaining allies began to clean up the battlefield amid the patchwork of various emotions, the people were busily moving. Those who won were proud of their victory.

“We won!!! We won!!!”

“...”

On the other hand, the defeated fell silent and held their breath, like pigs waiting anxiously for a slaughter they could never predict.

However, both the winners and losers had one emotion shared in common.

“Yoo-Hyeon…”

“No! What am I supposed to do if you leave me like this…”

There was a sense of loss. Everyone had lost a companion, friends, or family.

“These bastards!”

“Kill them! Kill them all!!”

Although the area was still being cleared, another fight was about to unfold. Of course, it wasn’t a fight started by the defeated. No, those who had won, those who had been stifled, entrapped while on the side of Sangun, they had grabbed those that had been defeated by the collar and raised their swords.

“You cannot do this!”

Jeong In-Chang and Won-Hwa, of course, stopped them.

“...”

However, Lee Jun-Kyeong stood silent.

“You have more qualities as a leader than I thought.”

A gray-haired man approached Lee Jun-Kyeong. This was someone who stood shoulder to shoulder with Odin and was both the head of the world and one who would lead the world.

“They deserve this. They have the right to express their resentment, the joy of victory, and the right to grieve their sense of loss,” Zeus said as he watched the unfolding chaos.

“It’s true that it's the virtue of a victor to show generosity and understanding, but…”

“...”

“That’s a matter of free will. You can’t force them to do so.”

Lee Jun-Kyeong almost nodded without realizing it as he himself agreed with that as well.

‘They reap what they sow.’

Those who were now in the hands of his allied Hunters and being threatened with their lives at the tip of a sword were all those who deserved all that they suffered. Their choices brought about their fate, and those who had been harmed by their choices had the right to vent their anger.

“Die!”

The atmosphere was heating up more and more. Jeong In-Chang and Won-Hwa weren’t able to stop them either, and it seemed like a great slaughter would happen.

"Stop!"

Then, someone shouted on behalf of Lee Jun-Kyeong, who didn’t step forward. It was a voice as chilly as a glacier but also a beautiful, harrowing voice.

“Stop it!”

Ungnyeo went to the center of the chaos and stopped them. However, instead, her intervention only had the opposite effect.

“My companions died to save you!”

“What the hell were you doing at that time?”

“Even after Odin appeared, you didn’t show up for a long time!”

The area was filled with uproar, crying, and anger.

“Are you going to just keep watching?”

At Zeus’ sarcasm, who seemed to be giving insanely mixed signals on how to proceed, Lee Jun-Kyeong quietly opened his mouth.

“For now,” he said, his quiet voice echoing through the air.

“...”

Unlike when Ungnyeo, Jeong In-Chang, and Won-Hwa were speaking, everyone held their breath at his words.

“Let’s talk about this after we finish. For now…let’s prepare to honor those who died in the battle.”

While both the enemies and allies shared the feeling of loss, there was one more thing that they all had felt in common.

“Understood.”

“...”

It was the fear of Lee Jun-Kyeong.

***

“Well, at least the clean up…seems like it ended quite well.”

To be quite honest, with regard to the cleanup of the battlefield, there wasn’t much to be done. They mostly collected the bodies of the dead. There was no way for them to even begin fixing the rest.

“Well, I mean, it’s only natural to assume everything had been destroyed, right?” someone joked.

His sarcasm aside, he was right. There was nothing left. The road had collapsed while the ground was littered with holes as if it had been bombed. The fortunate part was that there was no major damage to where the residents had lived.

Now, the current head of Gyeonggi-Do was Lee Jun-Kyeong. Soon, life went back to normal with nothing strange happening as the people both feared and followed him.

“This must be the first time you’ve ever had a conversation in such a comfortable position,” the man teased.

“Would it really be that uncomfortable for you to stop being so sarcastic for a moment or something, please?” Lee Jun-Kyeong asked.

“Oh? Now you’re being polite, too? Well, I mean I won’t be all that uncomfortable, but…”

“Then please stop.”

Lee Jun-Kyeong finally raised his hands in surrender. His head was about to burst amid the series of endless problems, but on top of that, he had to continue listening to this man’s ridicule.

“I really would like to kill you.”

“Oh ho. Well look who’s being…”

“Oops. I must have thought that out loud.”

“Looks like you lost it a little.”

The gray-haired man talking to Lee Jun-Kyeong was Zeus, the leader of Olympus.

“Don't worry. The other Hunters from Olympus have separate missions,” Zeus said to Lee Jun-Kyeong, who was looking at their surroundings. “Aren’t you curious as to what their missions are? It’s something quite closely re…”

“Please, stop.”

“But you’ll regret not knowing~ You’ll be very disappointed if you only find out after the mission…”

Lee Jun-Kyeong didn’t say anything else, but Zeus still suddenly shut his mouth. He was looking over at Lee Jun-Kyeong with even more interest. The Hunter had stopped talking, noticing that the very space around them was beginning to shake.

Rattle.

‘Although these idiots may not realize it…’

Zeus could see it.

‘At last, finally. Let’s see if he’s worth his salt.’

Mana was harmonizing with Lee Jun-Kyeong’s feelings. It was not only the mana inside of Lee Jun-Kyeong’s body, but also the mana around his body as well. The mana that made up the space around them was harmonizing to Lee Jun-Kyeong’s very existence. Other Hunters wouldn’t know what this meant.

‘His emotions are able to interfere with everything.’

“It looks like you’ll be able to kill someone with just a little bloodlust…”

"I beg your pardon?"

Lee Jun-Kyeong had been preoccupied thinking about something else for a while, so he asked the other man again, but Zeus only smiled in response.

“Well, okay. Looks like you have much to think about. I guess this isn’t a good time to collect on my payment?”

Zeus was referring to the cost of letting Odin go. Lee Jun-Kyeong’s expression hardened even more.

“Looks like I’ve added one more thing to your plate. By the way, who knows? Maybe if you tell me all of your worries, we’ll be able to solve everything to…”

“I’m sorry.”

Lee Jun-Kyeong finally stood up from his seat.

“It just doesn’t seem like a good time for us to talk. However, I will definitely pay your price. Moreover, we’ll have to go over what happened as well. Whether it’s about why you came to Korea, what you saw…”

Lee Jun-Kyeong pointed at Zeus' waist, toward a sword that hung ostentatiously, almost as if begging to be seen.

“Also about the Round Table and what happened there.”

"Hmm."

Zeus also rose from his seat.

“Well, I was supposed to be here to bring you some good news, but since that’s what you want, then…”

Zeus walked past Lee Jun-Kyeong without hesitation with a clear smile appearing on his lips. Lee Jun-Kyeong was curious about his smile, but he didn’t have the space to deal with it right now.

“Whew…”

Lee Jun-Kyeong kneaded his brow in the room, finally left alone. Zeus was right–there were too many things worrying him right now. Out of all of his worries, there was one that took the most precedence.

“Why is Zeus…”

Why was the Hunter being so kind to him? Lee Jun-Kyeong had even thought that when he had returned to the past, his final battle would have been one against Zeus, who was the man who had turned the world of the future into a living hell.

Zeus was a dictator who ruled the world in a Kingdom they called Eden, so the root of all problems in his future had been Zeus. However, right now, if he even included the issues with Yeo Seong-Gu, he had no idea what was going on.

There were so many things for him to worry about that his head was pounding. There was also the issue regarding the treatment of the Hunters who had followed Odin. Lee Jun-Kyeong sat on the sofa, contemplating the problems that couldn’t easily be solved.

Creak.

The sound of the door opening disturbed the silence in the room.

“I told you, let’s talk about it later…” Lee Jun-Kyeong said, thinking it was Zeus, coming back to tease him some more.

However, looking at the door, it wasn’t Zeus that stood in the doorway.

“Ungnyeo…”

Instead, an exhausted Ungnyeo stood in the doorway.

Clench.

The two looked at each other for a while before hugging each other without saying a word.[1]

***

“Because of the restriction called Gleipnir created by Odin…”

Everything Ungnyeo was saying was filled with a sense of dismay.

“We couldn’t leave because of it. I was free, but I couldn’t leave Fenrir behind.”

“...”

“I tried so many times to remove Gleipnir and free Fenrir from the chains, but I couldn’t do it.”

Ungnyeo seemed to be feeling guilty.

“When Odin had disappeared for the battle, I tried my best to get Fenrir out.”

“...”

“But with the strength I had… I tried to use everything I could muster to get rid of the chains, but…”

“It must not have worked.”

“Yeah…”

Tears welled up in Ungnyeo’s eyes, but Lee Jun-Kyeong pretended not to notice.mInstead, he spoke up.

“But you were still able to free Fenrir from his chains, right? That's how you appeared in front of me.”

Ungnyeo and Fenrir had appeared in front of Sangun's corpse. Although he hadn’t been able to take a closer look at Fenrir at that moment because he had been distracted, the little brat had appeared directly in front of him.

So, with that alone, Ungnyeo must have fulfilled her role.

“Well, that is…”

However, Ungnyeo's answer was unexpected.

“I didn’t do it.”

"What?"

“Fenrir did it.”

"What…”

Ungnyeo stopped walking and turned to look at Lee Jun-Kyeong. “I didn’t do anything there. He cast them off on his own. Well, I don’t know if ‘cast them off’ is the right way to say it, but…at least for me, I was just a burden to everyone.”

“...”

“Sangun died because of me,” Ungnyeo said.

“Don’t talk like that.”

Lee Jun-Kyeong tried to comfort her.

“No. If I was just a little bit stronger, I would have been able to get free with Fenrir, and no one would have had to struggle so much and Sangun wouldn’t have died.”

Eventually, tears cascaded down her cheeks.

“Sangun died because of me. It was my fault, and I hate myself even more for hating you, even if it was only for a moment.”

“Don’t talk nonsense,” Lee Jun-Kyeong snapped.

Ungnyeo trembled at his harsh tone.

“If Sangun could hear what you’re saying right now, he would have hated you. He was already dying.”

“What?”

“Sangun…he’s been fighting longer than you know. So don’t resent yourself so much. His death wasn’t your fault.”

“...”

"Because that's an insult to him."

For a moment, Lee Jun-Kyeong trembled, unseen by Ungnyeo.

He could still clearly feel the moment he had pierced through Sangun’s body. He could still hear Sangun’s sobs and screams, the pain seemingly running through the tiger’s body like an electric current.

‘I…’

Lee Jun-Kyeong may have been talking to Ungnyeo, but he was also talking just as much to himself. The gravity of his guilt, which an emotion that couldn’t be erased, raised its head.

“You look ridiculous.”[2]

“What?”

𝕗𝐫𝐞𝕖𝕨𝐞𝗯𝚗𝕠𝘃𝐞𝚕.𝐜𝗼𝚖

“What?”

Ungnyeo and Lee Jun-Kyeong turned their heads at the sudden voice. In front of them was the one they had been coming to find.

“Fenrir.”

“Fenrir!”

The two had been on their way to find Fenrir, but hadn’t even realized that they had arrived, too engrossed in their conversation. Fenrir seemed to have been watching them for a long time.

“Sangun isn’t dead.”

“...”

Ungnyeo trembled as if a memory had just come to mind.

‘Did they say he ate him?’

Lee Jun-Kyeong had also heard the story after he had returned from chasing after Odin. A massive wolf covered in chains had devoured the vast mountain-like tiger. There were rumors like that all over, and there was no way he hadn’t realized who the wolf and the tiger referred to.

Fenrir had eaten Sangun. Moreover, he had said that Sangun was still alive.

“You’re saying he didn’t die?”

Although this was the first time that he had seen Fenrir since then, Lee Jun-Kyeong had no choice but to ask the wolf about Sangun rather than how he was doing by this point.

“Sangun…”

For a moment, it seemed like a shadow was growing behind Fenrir.

The growing shadow’s form was obvious.

“Sangun…?”

“He’s inside me,” Fenrir said, saying something completely indecipherable.

“I guess I’ll need to hear an explanation,” Lee Jun-Kyeong said, rubbing his brow.

1. Waifu, waifu, waifu… 👈

2. Korean slang for how you look/act doesn’t match your appearance. 👈